@calvin It's a bit different, but yeah, I generally agree with that (and I've seen it before) - even if there were some technical deficiencies with the language or its underlying execution, the general /ideas/ were quite strong.

This is more... in the wake of vilifying VB6 so aggressively, we've pushed those that would have developed native apps for VB, to instead develop PHP/JavaScript apps and wrap them in Electron, a far, far worse outcome.

@bhtooefr well, TBH IME the VB.NET experience isn't really any more complicated than the VB6 route, and does get you a better environment - the problem is the developer community shunned a good way to get devs into the ecosystem, and then that stigma sustained when they made an environment that was about as easy but fixed most of the technical issues.

@bhtooefrMS was also somewhat sloth with their developer tools after "beating" Borland in the new millennium, having less need to compete; VS.NET took a while to come out & they only released a free VC++ compiler in ~2003 due to pressure from Unix+gcc eating mindshare & released free versions (with most non-enterprise stuff included) of the VS langs for 2005. Had they done it sooner, VB.NET might have made up the transition costs and stayed relevant. 2/2